Parents task Head teacher to refund 24M meant for bus purchase in Busia.

Parents of Lumino High School in the eastern district of Busia have put the school headteacher on the spot to choke UGX 24M meant for purchasing the school bus.

Previously, parents took a decision in 2016 to pay UGX 10,000 per child per term through the Parent’s Teachers Association to purchase a school bus.

To their dismay, they recently found out that only UGX 66.8M was on the account in Stanbic Bank that had signatories as the Headteacher, PTA Chairman, Treasurer and secretary.

According to one of the parents, Moses Oguttu, they decided that the account be turned to a fixed account so it could be earning some interest as the school prepared and planned for the purchase.

He added that, “We got information that UGX 24M was missing which we confirmed with the bank and showed that on December 23, 2020, UGX 4M was withdrawn and a week after 20M was also withdrawn. At inquiry, we were told that there are some people who are helping us get the bus as pledged by the president which we found unclear.”

The headteacher, Peter Ogooro, in a bank statement obtained by the parents is shown to have withdrawn the amount of money mentioned prior minus the parent’s consent who they tasked to refund it with immediate action.

On the other hand, Godfrey Adea Ojambo a parent at this school said that the money obtained intended to purchase the bus and called for utmost patience from the parents.

“People who authorized usage and withdrawal of that money were parents’ representatives which meant they thought it wise. The money collected couldn’t purchase a bus so the PTA and Board sat and decided to take this action and process the bus issue,” Ojambo noted.

Prior information obtained from the headmaster by parents as revealed by Maclean Egesa showed that the District LCV Chairman was the lead player in going to the State House to actualize the presidential pledge.

“We have already written to the State House to investigate this matter and all the people who signed withdrawal of this money must be held accountable. We also need the chairman to account where he went and to whom he gave the money to,” Egesa said with concern.

However, the Busia District Education Officer, Erisam Etyang reacted to the situation at hand and said that they have intervened to ascertain the truth of the matter.

“They were supposed to have consulted the school board for it is the custodian of the school funds. I realised some little money was spent but if it was spent by the board’s authorisation, there is no problem. We will need to affirm whether it was done so,” he assured.